Bridges Students Volunteer at Furman Fall Fest

After every Saturday College program that meets once a month, we participate in an afternoon activity. Those activities have ranged from movies to college tours. This past Saturday, October 30, we volunteered to assist the Furman Heller Service Corps in their annual Fall Fest program. Almost 30 of our students stayed to volunteer for Fall Fest! Fall Fest is an annual event for children from neighboring elementary schools. The campus is set up like a carnival complete with bouncy blow-up tents and cotton candy. I was SO PROUD of the Bridges students who did a great job monitoring the bouncy toys. We even had a group of students help with the "Harry Potter" themed room. They were "death eaters" and made the Harry Potter room a ton of fun! Way to go Bridges!

Bridges 2010 Kick-Off

Written by:

Aleen Sepulveda & Jarrod Hall

Bridges Interns

So far Bridges has had an AWESOME start! Everybody is pumped up and ready for all of our activities we are doing. The Xi class kicked off the summer by breaking through their odstacles in life to reach their goals with Justin Boudreau.

The Mus and Mus reconnected with each other by doing many activities that involved being able to remember things about each other's lives and interests. After all of the ice breakers, the classes began.

In English they have been learning how to give positive and negative feedback on films. The Math teachers have been teaching about how to make a car payment and the value of owning a car. In science they have been learning about the enviroment. About recycling, natural resources and their values and limitation on them. In social studies they learned how to manage a budget on monthly payments and other economic uses. In college planning the Mus have been learning how to fill out a college application and practicing the SATs while the Nus and Xis also learn about the SATs and how not to waste your time on anything.

All of our students are having a real fun time with all of their electives and evening activities that hey signed up like photography, mock trail. Girology, Fitness Center, E-field, Step Team and so much more.

In addition to having great teachers, our counselors are phenomenal! Many of them are doing more than their job description requires. They are teaching afternoon electives and evening activities.

The field trips are also a blast in both the Xi class and the Mu and Nu class. While the Xis all have fun by going to field trips around Greenville like in the Upcountry History Museum, BMW, the Children Museum and even a Scavenger Hunt, the Mus and Nus were off touring around different colleges like Winthrop, USC Upstate, Erskine, and Presbyterian College. Even on the weekends they are all busy as well. The Xis built trust and communication with each other in activites like the Rope Course. The Mus and Nus performed community service with local non-profits. They cleared Kudzu in the Sterling community, cleaned yards with Central Community Ministries, renovated North Greenville Food Crisis Ministries, and planted trees with Trees Greenville. Eric Bonini, a volunteer coordinating the efforts in the Sterling community stated the following about the Bridges students, "please accept my resounding THANK YOU for the amazing work your students did on Saturday morning. They were fun, unbeat, enthusiastic, hard-working, motivated... the list goes on and on! They really were a pleasure to work with, and I'd love to have any student associated with the Bridges program join us in future activites at the Sterling community site."

As a reward for all of their hard work on the ropes course and in community service, the students were rewarded with dinner at Hibachi Grill and a trip to Pump it UP! Everybody had a great time and they all also really starting to connect with one another for what ever they need.

Bridges is such an amazing program for everybody here that I can not wait for the next two weeks; it will be amazing and unforgetable.

Bridges Students Achieve Success!

At least every week, I receive a call, Facebook message, or email from our Bridges students with enthusiastic news about a success they had, an award, or something good that happened. Is is almost too much to keep up with. This is GREAT because it means that our program works! All of the time, effort, and resources we invest in our young people is working because they are achieving despite the challenges they face. Here are a few of our recent student achievements:

Tobias Going to Palmetto Boys State
Tobias was selected for Palmetto Boys State! About every year we have at least one of our students selected by their high school to attend Palmetto Boys State. Last year it was Alton, a student at Carolina Academy. This year, we are very proud to share that Tobias, a student at Hillcrest High School is attending Palmetto Boys State. Tobias is a phenomenal young person, with a good heart, strong work ethic, and desire to succeed.





Rodrick Graduates from Youth Leadership Greenville









Rodrick recently spent the last year participating in the Greenville Chamber of Commerce program, Youth Leadership Greenville. Through YLG, he grew as a leader and learned a lot about the community in which he lives. Rodrick made an impression on the other students in Youth Leadership Greenville, as he was selected to be one of the Graduation speakers. He is pictured here giving his graduation speech and receiving his certificate. Rodrick attends Hillcrest High School.


Angel Selected to be a Junior Marshall
Angel, a student at Travelers Rest High School was selected to be a Junior Marshal for Graduation. This is a huge honor as only those in the top ten of the Junior class are invited to serve in this capacity at graduation. We are very proud of Angel for all of her hard work resulting in this academic honor!







Lambda Class is On Track for College

Our Lambda class is set to graduate from high school June 3-4, 2010. What is phenomenal, is that 100% of them will be graduating from high school and 100% of them have been admitted to college or the military. This class of Bridges graduates have been admitted to the following colleges: Greenville Technical College, Columbia College, Clemson University, Winthrop University, Lander University, Benedict College, University of South Carolina Upstate, Furman University, Anderson University, Wake Forest University, New York University, The Oxford College at Emory, TCTC Bridge to Clemson program, Ohio State University, and Johnson & Wales. Way to go Lambda class!

Benefit Concert for Bridges to a Brighter Future

Music on a Mission in association with Hunter Broadcasting Group presents the first annual Ovations1, a benefit concert for Bridges to a Brighter Future to be held April 24 at 7:00 p.m. at The Handlebar, Greenville, South Carolina featuring Mystic Vibrations and True Blues. Tickets are $10.00 and are available for purchase at: http://www.handlebar.musictoday.com/.

Music on a Mission is the "brain-child" of two Furman students, Ivan and Maggie Mathena. Music on a Mission seeks to support the educational attainment for under-resourced young people through programmatic support and scholarships. Ovations1 is the first of many benefit concerts. One-hundred percent of ticket proceeds will benefit Bridges to a Brighter Future.

Purchase Tickets at: http://www.handlebar.musictoday.com/

Click Here to Join the Ovations1 Facebook Group